{"id":28592,"date":"2019-10-17T13:33:39","date_gmt":"2019-10-17T17:33:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/?p=28592"},"modified":"2019-10-17T13:33:46","modified_gmt":"2019-10-17T17:33:46","slug":"time-to-vote-what-employers-and-employees-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/legal\/2019\/10\/17\/time-to-vote-what-employers-and-employees-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Time to Vote! What Employers and Employees Need to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Authored by Deina Warren, Associate Director, Legal Affairs<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Election day is almost here. On October 21st<\/sup>, Canadians will go to the polls to choose the next federal government. According to Elections Canada estimates<\/a>, voters set a new record at the advance polls this year, with approximately 4.7 million ballots cast. That\u2019s a 29% increase from the 2015 election! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so, that still leaves a lot of votes and voters. What do you need to know about time off to vote? The Canada Elections Act <\/em>(“CEA<\/em>“) requires that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It is a\npretty straightforward process to determine if an employer needs to provide\ntime off. Start by asking:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. What are the voting hours in the employee\u2019s riding?<\/li>
  2. What are the employee\u2019s work hours?<\/li>
  3. Do the work hours allow for a 3-hour window for\nvoting?<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    If an employee\u2019s work hours do provide<\/strong> for a three hour window before or after, the employer does not have to provide time off. If an employee\u2019s work hours do not provide<\/strong> for a three hour window, the employer does have to provide time off. The employer gets to choose how and when to accommodate the three consecutive hours (s.132(2) <\/a>CEA<\/a><\/em>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Here are a\nfew examples:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Failure to provide time off and imposing a penalty or pay deduction are prohibited (CEA<\/a><\/em> s 133(1)<\/a>), subject to prosecution (CEA<\/a><\/em> s 489(1)(a)<\/a>) and punishable by a fine of no more than $2000 and\/or three months in prison (CEA <\/a><\/em>s 500(1)<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Employees are also prohibited from trying to interfering with employees\u2019 three hour voting window, whether by intimidation, undue influence or any other means (CEA<\/a><\/em> s 134<\/a>). This action is also subject to prosecution (CEA <\/a><\/em>s 489(3)(a)<\/a>) and punishable by a fine of up to $50,000 and\/or up to five years in prison (CEA<\/a><\/em> s 500(5)<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    One exception is for employees in the transportation industry (land, air or water) who are employed outside of their polling division, and where additional time off can\u2019t be accommodated without interfering with the transportation service (CEA<\/a><\/em> s 132(3)<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    For more information on the upcoming election, where you can vote, polling station accessibility, polling station hours, and other key facts, see Elections Canada 2019 Election page<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Authored by Deina Warren, Associate Director, Legal Affairs Election day is almost here. On October 21st, Canadians will go to the polls to choose the next federal government. According to Elections Canada estimates, voters set a new record at the advance polls this year, with approximately 4.7 million ballots cast…. More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ts_fic_featured_image_caption":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[137],"tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-28592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28592\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28592"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=28592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}